ADFAS Members Conservation of Plastics (Melbourne) Lecture

Yvonne Shashoua, a leading expert in plastic conservation and analysis, will present on the history and care of plastics. The lecture will be followed by ample opportunity to ask questions and show your plastic treasures to Yvonne for her expert advice.

About the presenter:

Yvonne Shashoua is a Senior Researcher at the National Museum of Denmark investigating the degradation and conservation of plastics. After graduating in industrial chemistry she worked as a paint technologist for Berger Paints in England. She joined the British Museum as a conservation scientist in 1988, specialising in the deterioration reactions and conservation of cellulose nitrate, cellulose acetate and rubber from 1995. Yvonne relocated to Denmark in 1998 when offered a PhD scholarship in the degradation pathways and conservation of plasticized PVC at the Danish Technical University and National Museum.  

She has more than 80 publications including a monograph ´Conservation of Plastics – materials science, degradation and preservation´ published by Elsevier in 2008. Yvonne was coordinator of International Council of Museums – Committee for Conservation´s working group Modern Materials and Contemporary Art until 2008. She researched cleaning of plastics as part of the collaborative EU 7th Framework Research project POPART (Preservation of Plastics Artefacts in Museums) between 2008 and 2012.

Between January and July 2012, she was a Getty Conservation Institute scholar researching the effectiveness of adsorbents for cellulose acetate film. Current active research interests include the stability of bioplastics,the application of nanomaterials to clean and consolidate modern artworks and the transfer of knowledge of plastics in museums to plastics in the environment.